Escalon had eight wrestlers competing in the final round of the Trans-Valley League championships over the weekend; five of them brought home first place honors.
The TVL finals event was hosted at Modesto Christian High School and featured varsity, JV boys and varsity girls wrestling matches.
At the varsity boys level, Escalon took home the team title with 245.5 points.
“We took 14 boys, we had eight of them in the finals and all 14 qualified to next week,” head coach Derek Scott said.
In the finals, winners were JW Mills at 115 pounds; Josh Graham at 134; Anthony Jones at 184; JP Lial at 197 and EJ Lewis at 222 pounds.
“JW dominated and Josh has worked the hardest of any guy in the off season to improve,” Scott said. “Anthony cut down in weight classes a couple of weeks ago and continued to look good. JP has had a banged up senior year so it was good to see him get some glory and EJ was tough all week, he’s strong and worked hard to get to his weight, he looked good.”
The coaching staff also brought home collective ‘Coach of the Year’ honors, said Scott.
Second place finishers for the Cougars were Matt Rangel, 128 pounds; Christian Rowe, 154; Sebastian Snow, heavyweight.
Taking third place honors were Christian Cruz, 106; Kalyb Miller, 120; Luis Garcia, 140; Talan Reider, 147; Logan Dooley, 170. Caden Gonsalves earned fourth place at 162.
All move on to the Division 5 Sections, being hosted at Foothill in Sacramento.
“It’s good to see that we’re getting better at the end of the season, when we’re supposed to get better,” Scott said of the varsity squad hitting their stride.
For the varsity girls, Isabella Alcala, at 101 pounds and Jessica Freitas, at 145 both went 2-0 for first place; Dani Roybal went 1-1 at 139 pounds and took second.
The JV boys sent eight wrestlers to the mats.
Christian Rodriguez took first place at 170; Frank Rodriguez was first at heavyweight. Aidan Freitas was second at heavyweight and Owen Nielsen second at 152 pounds.
The girls move on to compete this weekend at Central Valley in Ceres.
